"Down in the boondocks, down in the boondocks," lamented singer Billy Joe Royal in 1965. "People put me down 'cause that's the side of town I was born in." Living in the boondocks—that is, the outskirts, the hinterlands, the rural or backwater side of the tracks—is what dooms Billy Joe's love affair with the rich little girl from the "house up on the hill." Nothing good, it seems, can come from the boondocks. But what exactly does that mean? We know where Podunk is, but where the heck are the original boondocks?

The real boondocks are half a world away.

You might guess that the word "boondocks" has a pleasant heartland flavor, borrowed from some Indian tribe or other in New England or the Midwest. But you'd be pretty far wrong. The first boondocks weren't in Maine or Ohio or Iowa. In fact, the word comes directly from the Tagalog word bundok, meaning "mountain." The original boondocks were the Cordillera Central, the spiny mountain range in the north part of the Philippine island of Luzon.

Lord have mercy on a soldier out in the boondocks.

From 1899 until 1901, U.S. forces occupying the Philippines waged a savage guerrilla war against Filipino revolutionaries fighting for independence. The rebels would often strike quickly and then retreat to the highlands, or bundoks. "Boondocks" soon became American military slang for the countryside, the jungle, the sticks.

A tragedy moves the boondocks to the homefront.

Most Americans back home had never heard the word "boondocks" until 1956, when six Marine recruits drowned during an ill-conceived training exercise at Parris Island. "The instructor said we were going out in the boondocks," recruits testified at the subsequent court-martial trail. The scandal of the Ribbon Creek drownings splashed the word "boondocks" into the headlines for months. In the Vietnam era, it was commonplace to refer to rough areas as "the boonies," and the word caught on for rural places stateside as well.

Ironically, the original boondocks are now a popular destination.

Today, the real bundoks aren't the country shacks you're picturing from "Down in the Boondocks," or the endless suburbs where the characters in the comic strip (and TV show) The Boondocks live. The Luzon mountains may be remote, but the eye-popping scenery there has led them to be dubbed the "eighth wonder of the world." The ancient Ifugao rice terraces lining the edges of the cloud forest are now a UNESCO World Heritage site, and draw tourists from all over the world.

Explore the world's oddities every week with Ken Jennings, and check out his book Maphead for more geography trivia.